In a standard portable spectrophotometer, the incident light is generally, set at an angle of forty-five (45) degrees from normal. The resulting spectral reflectances that can be gathered are generally in the same plane as the incident light and are on either side of the specular angle (equal and opposite angle to the incident light) as well as nearer to the incident light source itself.
New portable spectrophotometric devices offer a vast multitude of angular color response (spectral reflectance) data. Besides the addition of several new angles, including azimuthal, or out-of-plane, angles, many instruments also offer additional light sources with different geometries from standard. By way of example, the incident light source of a second illuminator may be located at fifteen (15) degrees from normal. The plurality of combinations of incident light and angular response can be both too little and too much information to be handled at one time.
Thus, a need exists for systems and methods that may be used to evaluate all of the data and specific combinations of data from a spectrophotometer. There is also a need for systems and methods in which the individual angular spectral reflectance and colorimetric (e.g. XYZ, L*a*b*, L*C*h*, etc.) responses are handled as both independent entities as well as entities dependent upon the other responses (whether all responses or specifically selected responses) received from the device.